Hey
I am trying to install an SATA drive (Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3750528AS) in my old system. My mother brd is an Abit NF7-S2G.
System doesn't detect the drive. Or rather, when I boot to windows it sees it as a floppy.
I have SATA enabled in bios.
I am just going to use it as a single drive (boot drive). No RAID.
I can't find any driver disc for this Mobo. I got it rebuilt, so I don't think I have one.
Running out of ideas, getting frustrated.
finlander

Ok, iirc that has an nf 2 Ultra 400 chipset so if you do need storage drivers they would be in the nVidia UDP.
what OS & service pack level?
You probably also need to force SATA I compatability on the HDD.

Winxp pro sp3
How do I force compatibility?

I have the SATA controller enabled
I will try downloading the chipset driver and see what that does.

iirc the S2G doesn't have a SiL controller as it has an nF2 400 Ultra chipset with onchip SATA.

With XP Pro SP3 I doubt that you need a storage driver though - I'm betting that you need SATA1 compatability http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?lo...000dd04090aRCRD

Ok, here is where I'm at now. I felt the drive, it was cold. I played with the pwr connectors and got it to spin up.
I ran winxp setup again and it did detect the drv so I did a single partition and a "quick" format.
I got to a windows desktop and checked the drive properties. It is showing it as a 127 gig drive.
This is a 750 gig sata drive and I need the space. It does show the correct model number for the drive.
Do you think this is a jumper problem?
The drv didn't come with a jumper but I can probably find one laying around here.
Or is this some kind of driver issue"?
Or maybe I did something wrong setting it up..
I don't think this is a problem with the drive itself.
Thanks for any help, I'm going to get a drink.
finlander

Reformat the drive NTFS, looks like you went with FAT 32. Do a full format, not quick this time just to be thorough.

Yah. I am thinking bios update too.
I will check on that and reformat.

Well, I checked on the bios. I am running the latest ver which was released in 2005.
I didn't see anything about support for large drives in any updates.
The capacity of the drive is listed as 137 gig which is right at the limit so I guess I am looking at a limitation of my current system.
Guess I'll just have to live with it til I finally build a new system.
Expect a bunch of dumb questions around that time.
And thanks for the help guys.

What service pack are you suing with Win XP? It needs to be at least SP1.

I would be very surprised if it didn't have 48-bit LBA support - I think that all nF2s did so there would be no need to mention it as a BIOS update as it should have had it since the original shipping BIOS.

So you did format as NTFS? The reason I mention that is 127GB is what it would show if you went FAT32 since that is the current limitation for that system.

Service Pack 3
Format NTFS, yes
If this board supports large drives, why did setup create one partition that is exactly the size of the limit?

Maybe that board does SATA 150 instead of 300. If so, you will need to set the jumper for it to work correctly.

Well, I set the jumper on the HDD (lucky to find one small enough).
Ran windowsxp setup again.
Setup still sees this as a 131 gig drive.
I went into bios and the hard drive is listed as 750 gig in there.
I wonder if this is a windows setup problem?

"Did you go into disk management, you should be able to see the unused space,
activate it as another partition. Sometimes when you install sp2 it
will automatically allocate the extra gigs on the same partition. But
I think there is a bios limitation on some boards. Partition magic
could probably take care of it. I just activate the extra space as a
separate partition and be done with it."

I saw this on another board.

Your motherboard may not let you see more than 137Gb though.

I know that some some chipsets simply won't go over 137Gb. I have an old firewire hard drive enclosure that works fine with 120Gb drives, but a 160Gb drive works, but won't show more than around 120Gb since it was built before such drives were commonly available. It's an old PATA enclosure so I converted it to a firewire DVD burner.

Speedbump:
Thank-you. I went into disk management and was able to see the unallocated space.
I was able to create a partition and logical drive from there.
Thanks again for your help. If you are ever in NW Wisconsin or Duluth, Minnesota I will buy you a beer.
Thanks to everyone else too.
finlander

OK my friend.